INTRODUCTION: Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software.

They are of different types: cloud computing, mobile computing, DNA computing, green computing etc. Definition: Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. Cloud computing is location independent, internet based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to the computers and other devices on demand, like electricity. Cloud computing refers to applications and services offered over the internet. These services are offered from data centres all over the world, which collectively are referred to as cloud. This metaphor represents the intangible yet universal nature of the internet. The idea of cloud simplifies many network connections and computer systems involved in online sevices. Infact many network diagrams use the image of cloud to represent the internet. This symbolizes the internets broad reach, while simplifying its complexity. Any user with the internet connection can access the cloud and sevices it provides. Since these services are often connected, users can share information between multiple systems and with other users.

a-Service (PaaS) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service:(IaaS) Infrastructure-as-a-Service like Amazon Web Services provides virtual server instance(API) to start, stop, access and configure their virtual servers and storage. In the enterprise, cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and bring more online as soon as required. It's sometimes referred to as utility computing. Platform-as-a-Service:(PaaS) Platform-as-a-service in the cloud is defined as a set of software and product development tools hosted on the provider's infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway software installed on the customer's computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of Salesforce.com) and Google Apps are examples of PaaS. Software-as-a-Service:(SaaS)

The services of cloud computing are broadly divided into three categories: P la tf o r m a sInfrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS),

In the software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere. TYPES OF CLOUD COMPUTING: Cloud Computing can be classified into 4 types on the basis of location where the cloud is hosted:

1. Public Cloud: Computing infrastructure is hosted at the vendors premises. The customer has no visibility over the location of the cloud computing infrastructure. The computing infrastructure is shared between organizations. 2. Private Cloud: Computing architecture is dedicated to the customer and is not shared with other organisations. They are expensive and are considered more secure than Public Clouds. Private clouds may be externally hosted ones as well as in premise hosted clouds. 3. Hybrid Cloud: Organisations host some critical, secure applications in private clouds. The not so critical applications are hosted in the public cloud. The combination is known as Hybrid
Cloud.

COMPONENTS OF CLOUD COMPUTING: Client: A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software which relies on the cloud for application delivery Service: A cloud service or a web service is a software system designed to support inter operable machine to machine interaction over a network Application: A cloud applicant chases the cloud in software architecture often eliminating the need to ion pur install and run the application on the customers own computer Platform: A cloud platform such as platform as a service, the delivery of a computing platform and for solution stack as a service facilitates deployment of application Storage: A cloud storage involves the delivery of the data storage as a service including data base like services often billed on a utility computing basis, eg: per giga- byte per month Infrastructure: A cloud infrastructure such as infrastructure as a service is the delivery of the computer infrastructure typically a platform visualization environment as a service. Cloud computing is, at its core, about delivering applications or services in an on-demand environment. Cloud computing providers will need to support hundreds of thousands of users and applications/services and ensure that they are fast, secure, and available. In order to accomplish this goal, they'll need to build a dynamic, intelligent infrastructure with four core properties in mind: transparency, scalability, monitoring/management, and security. Transparency One of the premises of Cloud Computing is that services are delivered transparently regardless of the physical implementation within the "cloud". Transparency is one of the foundational concepts of

4. Community Cloud: The cloud infrastructure is shared between the organizations of the same community. For example, all the government agencies in a city can share the same cloud but not the non government agencies. Cloud bursting is the term used to define a system where the organisation uses its own infrastructure for normal usage, but cloud is used

for peak loads.

cloud computing, in that the actual implementation of services in the cloud is obscured from the user. This is actually another version of virtualization, where multiple resources appear to the user as a single resource. It is unlikely that a single server or resource will always be enough to satisfy demand for a given provisioned resource, Scalability Obviously cloud computing service providers are going to need to scale up and build out "mega data centers". Scalability is easy enough if you've deployed the proper application delivery solution, but what about scaling the application delivery solution? That's often not so easy and it usually isn't a transparent process; there's configuration work and, in many cases, re-architecting of the network. The potential to interrupt services is huge, and assuming that cloud computing service providers are servicing hundreds of thousands of customers, unacceptable. Making things even more difficult will be the need to scale on-demand in real-time in order to make the most efficient use of application infrastructure resources. Many postulate that this will require a virtualized infrastructure such that resources can be provisioned and de-provisioned quickly, easily and, one hopes, automatically. The "control node" often depicted in high-level diagrams of the "cloud computing mega data center" will need to provide on-demand dynamic application scalability. This means integration with the virtualization solution and the ability to be orchestrated into a workflow or process that manages provisioning. Intelligent Monitoring In order to achieve the on-demand scalability and transparency required of a mega data center in the cloud, the control node, i.e. application delivery solution, will need to have intelligent monitoring capabilities. It will need to understand when a particular server is overwhelmed and when network conditions are adversely affecting application performance. It needs to know the applications and

services being served from the cloud and understand when behavior is outside accepted norms. While this functionality can certainly be implemented externally in a massive management monitoring system, if the control node sees clients, the network, and the state of the applications it is in the best position to understand the real-time conditions and performance of all involved parties without requiring the heavy lifting of correlation that would be required by an external monitoring system. But more than just knowing when an application or service is in trouble, the application delivery mechanism should be able to take action based on that information. If an application is responding slowly and is detected by the monitoring mechanism, then the delivery solution should adjust application requests accordingly. If the number of concurrent users accessing a service is reaching capacity, then the application delivery solution should be able to not only detect that through intelligent monitoring but participate in the provisioning of another instance of the service in order to ensure service to all clients. Security Cloud computing is somewhat risky in that if the security of the cloud is compromised potentially all services and associated data within the cloud are at risk. That means that the mega data center must be architected with security in mind, and it must be considered a priority for every application, service, and network infrastructure solution that is deployed. The application delivery solution, as the "control node" in the mega data center, is necessarily one of the first entry points into the cloud data center and must itself be secure. It should also provide full application security from layer 2 to layer 7 - in order to thwart potential attacks at the edge. Network security, protocol security, transport layer security, and application security should be prime candidates for implementation at the edge of the cloud, in the control node. While there certainly will be, and

should be, additional security measures deployed within the data center, stopping as many potential threats as possible at the edge of the cloud will alleviate much of the risk to the internal service infrastructure. CLOUD COMPUTING WORKING In a cloud computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user's side decrease. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing systems interface software which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network takes care of the rest. There's a good chance you've already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's computer

CLOUD COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE When talking about a cloud computing system, it's helpful to divide it into two sections: the front end and the back end. They connect to each other through a network, usually the Internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees. The back end is the "cloud" section of the system. The front end includes the client's computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system. Not all cloud computing systems have the same user interface. Services like Web-based e-mail programs leverage existing Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other systems have unique applications that provide network access to clients. On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the "cloud" of computing services. In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server. A central server administers the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other. If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there's likely to be a high demand for a lot of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all its clients' information stored. That's because these devices, like all computers, occasionally break down. A cloud computing system must make a copy

cloud.

of all its clients' information and store it on other devices. The copies enable the central server to access backup machines to retrieve data that otherwise would be unreachable. Making copies of data as a backup is called redundancy. Benefits: Reduced Cost Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money. Increased Storage Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems. Highly Automated No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up to date. Flexibility Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods. More Mobility Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks. Allows IT to Shift Focus No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, government organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation.
Demerits:

recovery. Investing in a ton of duplicate infrastructure makes no sense. Cloud computing will be more specialized application services. A lot of IT organization cant afford to invest in supercomputer-class infrastructure. Yet, the business could benefit from access to some pretty compute-intensive analytic applications. On a strategic level, there are hundreds of applications that are too fundamental to the business to run on a cloud. Building an equivalent to the Wolfram Alpha system would be cost prohibitive for most organizations and you can image how any number of compute-intensive application services might spring up on top of any number of public cloud platforms.

Conclusion: Cloud computing is the next big wave in computing. It holds a lot of promise and it is likely to be a major influence on hosting and application development. Since it has many benefits such as better hardware management, better and easier management of data security etc, it has become the favorite for many big companies. Hence the future for cloud computing is bright as the big names in computers are throwing lots of sources into it. REFERENCES: www.infoworld.com,www.ikinvest.com,www.how stuffworks.com,www.cloudcomputing.blogspot.co m,www.ibm.com

Additional cost of data transfer fees You do not have control over the remote servers, their software, or their security. Your data is at the mercy of a thirdparty company (you better make sure you trust them) It may be difficult (or even impossible) to migrate massive amounts of data from the provider APPLICATIONS It is more efficient to make use of a cloud computing service to provide backup and